Just felt I had to share. I hate to say it was a rite of passage, but it kind of was.
-Teppei
Congrats! What kind of tat did you get and where, if it’s not too personal a question?
Welcome to the club.I’m just planning on going back to get my 5th one finally finished.
Congrats!
Tell us about it!
Rose
Great. Just DONT pick the scabs whatever you do. It may seem tempting, but you will ruin the tattoo FOREVER.
My tattooist Vanessa says “it’s a hundred miles to your first tattoo and five minutes to your second.”
Enjoy, and plan carefully what will complement it, and then get another one!
hehehehe
Redtatts
Congratulations… I joined the club myself a few weeks ago, with a Kanji (Death) on my arm…
I can’t wait to get my second one…
So true. Five minutes out of the tattoo place I was itching to go back for seconds.
All my tattooless friends think I’m a freak.
Plan to have one every birthday. Or till I run out of space or ideas.
Yea teppei!!! Cant wait to see it!!
maybe I should get one too…
I am dying to get one on my belly to cover up what I feel is a hideous scar from where I had emergency abdominal surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. In reality it is a thin reddish line that runs from just below my navel to my pubis and is slightly off center to the right. It doesn’t show even when I wear a 2 piece bathing suit, but it bothers me immensely.
At first I considered a rose or flower of some sort and the stem could cover the scar, but that idea doesn’t thrill me. I can’t really tell you exactly what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it. I know I want to get a mermaid done, (imagine that) but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for in tattoo flash pics. I’m thinking of selecting a pic from my collection, copying it and seeing if a tattoo artist can duplicate it. I want a mermaid who is pretty but not too cartoonish, possibly sitting on a rock, maybe something in her hands. (Maybe I’ll add some Dorance #5 stainless…)
I got my first one over spring breal and absolutely love it. I do have to agree about the sunburn thing… it was just that unpleasant and just that much annoying.
DO be careful of the scabs. When it starts peeling (like a sunburn) be careful only to pinch off what has parted from your healed skin. DO NOT SCRATCH AT IT!
And with that said… here is something interesting. My tattoo artist, a very well known artist in the area recommended that, since I am a very healthy person, I should forego using bacatracin or other antibiotic ointment on the tatt. Instead, he recommended that I just use good moisturizing skin lotion to keep it from becoming irritated. It healed soooooo quickly and looks wonderful… I hope you all have had such good experiences…
~Mag
I want another!
Congratulations!
Got my first one back in January - hurt a lot on some parts (there’s a lot of black in it), but found I didn’t feel ike throwing up if I didn’t watch it.
AH, was that one of those tatoo parlors on Lighthouse in Monterey? Cause they seem to have a lot of those places lately on Lighthouse, I always wondered what it was like inside.
Before tattoos were legalized in Massachusetts just 3 months ago or so, my former roommates ran a tattoo parlour in our house.
I got to meet all kinds of interesting people and I saw a great deal of BAD designs.
As long as you didn’t get a butterfly or a little heart or something on your ankle, or something at the base of your back- we would be nice to you.
There were a lot of people who wanted butterflies. Either butterflies or Japanese characters. We would always laugh at them after they left, because if someone chose a tasteful design, we would give them a deal, and make up the difference by wildly overcharging anyone who got hearts or butterflies.
Sadly those days are over, my former roommate took all the tattoo equipment and the autoclave. Damn.
Congrats teppei! 
Something about going into the military makes us just wanna get tats.
I only have one, but I’m pretty sure others will come along when I get money and a good reason to get them. 
Congrats!
And to all of you who say tattoos don’t hurt, just try getting one on the top of your foot. (Owwww, that’s my little baby toe bone!)
And if you do accidentally pull off an important scab, you might be able to convince your tattoo artist to refill the color. Mine did it for me.
-Tat
Tattva, the top of your foot? Yeeeow!!
That’s harsh. The one on my leg felt the best, it almost tickled compared to my shoulder blade.
The worst place i have ever seen was this guy who came in and wanted two eyeball with flames- one on each ELBOW!
This was awkward for my roommate to accomplish because the guy had to kneel on the floor with his elbows bent on the table. Even then my roommate couldn’t get a good angle.
It hurt so much that the man couldn’t hold still after awhile, and my friends helped hold him down (by his own request) and he was screaming and swearing and WRITHING in pain. It was so bad that he called it quits after the first eyeball, which never made it past the outline stage.
The fun part was that some girl who wanted a butterfly on her ankle who was next in the “waiting room” (our living room) had never been tattooed before and I can’t imagine what she thought may have been going on in the other room. She left.
what’s wrong with getting a tattoo at the base of your back???
i thought it would be a good place, and it was the only place my gryphon (harold) really fit…
alas! only now, two years later do i discover that it is dorky!
:o 
I’m with you, arisu. I’ve got a butterfly. Of course, it isn’t exactly on my ankle… Where I got it hurt a lot more than that. But I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.
Of course, I’m not the one that picked it out either, but at least it wasn’t something I hated. Now I just have to decide what I want for the next one (though someone coughcrunchycough said they’d do a design for me ) I already know where it’s going, just not sure what it will be.